


Honey And Amber

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Afternoon Tea, Ballroom Dancing, Dancing, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Femlock, Fluff, Hamish the talking skull is trying to set them up, John does witchcraft in a little sort of way, Magic Shop, Sappho - Freeform, Sherlock runs a magic shop, Witches, everything is very soft, it's cute, soft lesbian witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-05-04 15:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5338604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock runs a little magic shop, with her trusty friend Hamish, the Glaswegian skull, who talks and interferes, and is a constant matchmaker. Johanna it's-a-mouthful-call-me-John Watson takes a wrong turning and discovers the shop, as well as a friend, and the love of her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. meeting a match

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fae (Faetalities on tumblr)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Fae+%28Faetalities+on+tumblr%29), [claire (Piningfemlock on tumblr)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=claire+%28Piningfemlock+on+tumblr%29).



The shop was fitted out in wood the colour of dark honey, and it was just beginning to turn to evening. The sun hung low, and its light bathed the shop in honey and melted butter tints. Inside, a youngish woman was spinning round in an office chair behind the counter, her chin resting in her hand, a dejected expression on her face. The shop itself smelled enticingly of herbs, incense and dried apricots, along with the ozone smell that goes with magic-making. The walls were a mass of shelves covered in all sorts of things in an order none but she could comprehend, but which made, to her, total sense.

On the counter itself were herbs and tiny trees in little pots, a jewellery tree on which hung a dazzling array of amulets, some candles and lanterns and a pestle-and-mortar half full of a sweet-smelling paste. Beside these sat a skull, slightly yellowed. The skull nattered its teeth a little, and said in a Glaswegian accent tempered down by centuries on the London market, “I could set you up wi’ someone, you know, really, I mean it. There’s a network of the undead in this town like you wouldnae believe. A nice seductive vampire girl, eh? You’d like that.”

The woman sighed. “No, Hamish, I really don’t think I would. I want someone…oh, I don’t know. Wholesome. Sweet.”

“Well, honey,” said the skull. “If tha’s what you want, I dinnae think hanging around in some musty old magic shop’s gonnae help you. You hafter get oot more. Tha’s what ah’m sayin’.”

“I don’t _want_ to get out more though, Hamish.” The woman huffed. “Why is it so much _effort_ to get a girlfriend? Guys in romantic comedies do it without even trying.”

“Aye, but they’re men. And they’re straight, whereas _you’re_ bent as a nine bob note.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “ _Thank_ you, Hamish, for your lovely colloquialisms.”

“Just try’na cheer you up – no need to get shirty wi’ me.” If the skull had still had a body, it would have raised its hands in a gesture of acquittal, but it had no body, so its voice had to do the work for it.

Outside the window, a young woman was staring intently at the door, apparently having noticed that the blue and white sticker on the glass pane did not in fact say, as one might have supposed, ‘Neighbourhood Watch Scheme’ but in fact ‘Neighbourhood Witch Scheme’. A smile spread across the woman’s face and she pushed open the door.

The bell on the door rang out across the shop, and the woman behind the counter snapped to attention, hurriedly putting the skull back into position and muttering a few words under her breath. The skull, who had been about to make an inappropriate comment, was instantly silenced, its teeth stopped in mid chatter. The woman who had just come in looked around the room, surveying the shelves, a soft smile playing on her peach-glossed lips. The woman at the counter watched her, never once taking her eyes from her.

The customer caught her eye, and smiled to her, and made to come forward. “Is there anything in particular I can help you with?” the woman at the counter asked, jolted to attention.

“No, no. I just noticed this place – took a wrong turning on my way home from work. I didn’t know there were any magic shops near where I lived.”

“Oh, well, there’s this one.” The woman behind the counter, whose badge identified her as ‘Sherlock’, said, smiling sheepishly.

The other woman laughed. “Evidently.”

“You’re interested in magic, then?” Sherlock asked, pushing a curl of deep-brown hair behind her ear.

“Oh, yes. I mean, I’m only an amateur really.” The woman said, blushing. “But I enjoy it. I’ve been looking for a coven to join, really.”

The woman behind the counter screwed up plum-painted lips. “Not much of that round here – there’s one meets at Angelo’s, but they’re all ‘love the earth and don’t do any real magic and instead talk about love spells that we’ll never really do and prod crystals’.” She said, a slight sigh edging her voice.

“Oh, shame… I had high hopes.”

“Sorry to dash them.”

“But still, I’ve found a proper shop, and a fellow-witch in the area – I’m assuming you do witchcraft…?”

“I do. The shop sort of gives it away, I’d have thought.”

“A little. I’m John, by the way. John Watson. I mean, it’s Johanna really, but that’s a mouthful, so I shorten it.” She smiled again. The smile came easily to her, crinkling dimples into her cheeks and laughter-lines on her brow.

“Sherlock.” They shook hands.

“So you run this place, huh?” said John, looking around.

Sherlock nodded. “Mm hmm. Welcome to my life.”

John laughed. “Oh, come on. There must be more to life than this…surely.” Sherlock shook her head. “No, no, you’re making it up. There’s more to life than work – friends, a boyfriend.”

“Not my area. Either of them.” Sherlock said, shrugging a little dolefully.

“So you’re just…lonely.”

“I guess.”

“Don’t get out much.”

“Exactly.”

“She never gets oot at all, tha’s what.” Said Hamish. If he had had eyes in his eye sockets, he would have rolled them. John jumped slightly, and looked down in shock. “Aye, lass, I can talk. No need tae stare.” He added, reproachfully.

“Shut _up_ , Ham!” Sherlock hissed, mortified, a flush rising on her cheeks. Then, turning to John, she said apologetically, “I’m sorry about him. He doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.”

“It’s all right.” John said, that sunshine smile coming back onto her lips. “It’s cute. I’ve never seen an actual talking skull before. I figured it was just in stories and stuff. You know, Howl’s Moving Castle type thing. A book idea.”

“Well, it’s real. He’s real. And he doesn’t know the meaning of tact.”

“Like _you_ do!” Hamish retorted. Sherlock sighed.

John laughed. She had a sweet laugh, Sherlock thought. A laugh like bells chiming in a woodland glade, or a brook bubbling through a copse. But she was being poetic. And that was dangerous. She was not going to fall in love with the unattainable. Not again. John was saying something, making small talk. Sherlock pulled herself from her haze and concentrated on the words. “So, do you live near here?” John was asking.

“Actually I live a couple of streets away.”

“Oh, really?” John tilted her head sideways slightly, and Sherlock forcefully tried to pretend it didn’t jog her heart a little. It was too early to fall in love. Too early. And John was obviously going to be straight. Everyone Sherlock fell for always was. This couldn’t be an exception.

“Yeah. You know Speedy’s?” She wouldn’t know it. Of course she wouldn’t know it. Sherlock was being stupid. She should shut up and just stop. John couldn’t be her friend, much less her girlfriend. Sherlock had learned this; you stayed aloof and didn’t get involved with people, because closeness gave people the power to hurt you.

“Yeah, actually. I sometimes go there for lunch. It’s quite close to my work…I’ve been looking for a flat closer to there for ages, but I can’t find anywhere reasonable – central London is so stupidly expensive, you know?”

It was a moment before it sunk in. I’m having a conversation, thought Sherlock. Damn. “Yeah, it’s extortionate.” She was saying it before she realised. “My flat costs a fortune, and this place is stupidly expensive to stock… I’ve been thinking about taking a flatmate.”

“Really?” John raised an eyebrow. “That’s interesting. My landlord might be putting up my rent soon, and honestly on a GP’s salary I don’t think I’ll be able to afford it, but moving into suburbia lengthens the commute.” She shrugged. “It’s all a bit tricky, to be honest.”

“Mm.” Sherlock couldn’t think of a longer response. She was too conflicted. “A-anyway,” she managed, after a moment. “Were you wanting any witchcraft supplies?”

“Not really.” John said, with a sheepish grin that pressed her cheeks into the starry pattern of dimples again. “I just kind of popped in on a whim. It was the sign, really.”

“The Neighbourhood Witch scheme has been surprisingly good for business.” Sherlock agreed, checking her watch. It was half seven, time to be packing up and getting home, but she wasn’t going to stop talking to John. No. Perish the thought. “They list the shop on their website so people can find it.”

“I didn’t know that.” John said. “That’s really handy.” Seemingly having noticed Sherlock’s attention being drawn to her wrist, she added. “What time do you close?”

“Half past seven, usually.”

John looked at her watch and looked rueful. “God, I’ve been keeping you, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. Honestly.” She meant it.

“That’s sweet of you. Listen, it’s really nice to find another witch in the area who shares my sentiments. Let me give you my number.” She pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket and a pen from the counter, and wrote it down, pressing it into Sherlock’s hands. Then, with a wave and a call of “see you soon, then!” she was gone.

“Ooooooooohhhhhh. Get you!” said Hamish.

Sherlock gave him a death glare. “Shut up. She’s straight. They always are.”

“Nonsense.” Hamish said. “Yer talking rubbish, lass.”

“What? No I’m not. Be quiet.” Sherlock stood up and began tidying things up on the counter, then reached for her coat and began to pull it on.

“She’s about as straight as you are, Sherlock. Get home and think about it. You’ll realise then what an idiot you’re being.”

Sherlock shook her head and clicked her teeth, turned off the light and left and locked the door. Walking home she very carefully kept her mind extremely blank, though John’s lips stretched in a smile kept creeping in at the edges. When she got inside, and upstairs, she pulled off her coat and threw it onto the floor, then flung herself onto the sofa.

What had Hamish meant? Here was what she knew about John Watson for certain: John was shorter than she was. She had grey eyes the colour of a storm-tossed ocean. She wore peach lip-gloss but no other makeup. She dressed in black trousers and grey-checked shirts for work sometimes. She wore sensible shoes – flats, not heels. She carried a reasonably priced briefcase; no expensive handbag for her. Her hair was blonde, and she wore it in a bob such that the tips curled up around the bottoms of her ears. She kept pens in her pockets. She had dimples when she smiled, and incredibly expressive lines on her forehead. She didn’t paint her nails. She practised witchcraft, and shared Sherlock’s sentimentality on it. She was very pretty. Her full name was Johanna. She worked as a GP. She had given Sherlock her number.

Things she had thought she knew about John: John was straight. She was happily married or had a long-term boyfriend. She was painfully normal and usual. She could barely like Sherlock, never love her. But, she realised, none of this could be true. Well, almost none of it. John had no wedding ring, and a long-term relationship always showed itself somewhere, and Sherlock had seen no evidence of it. Besides, a long-term relationship left people eager to get home, without the time to talk to strangers….or give them their phone numbers. John was interested in witchcraft, and had thought a talking skull was ‘cute’; she was most definitely _not_ painfully normal or usual. And she’d carried on a conversation with Sherlock quite cheerily despite never having known her before.

As for her being straight…. Sherlock was resorting to grasping at straws and stereotypes. John wore the workday equivalent of plaid. She picked trousers over skirts. She chose grey rather than the virulent pinks and purples so often seen worn by professional women. She cut her hair – relatively – short. She didn’t wear ridiculous heels. But none of this really said anything. Not really. God. Then she had an idea. She jumped up from the sofa and grasped her laptop, opening it.

She had joined Facebook a year ago, to find and be found by potential clients, and to nose into other peoples’ lives. She had never told John her surname, so she couldn’t be found except via the Neighbourhood Witch Scheme, probably. But then, she didn’t want to be anonymous or mysterious. Quite the opposite, she realised; she had a deep-seated wish for John to know absolutely everything about her, even her most intimate secrets. She couldn’t explain this wish, but it was there, fiercely, curiously there.

She opened the website, and typed John’s name – Johanna Watson – into the search bar, and John’s face stared out at her, just as she had seen it. Half-nervous now, Sherlock clicked the about tab, then relationships, and…John was single. But she’d known that. She’d _known_ that. More or less, at least. Frustration welled up in her. There was nothing here! Nothing! Nothing! God! She was being stupid and she knew it. She shouldn’t even be trying, she told herself. She barely knew John. She was getting too close too quickly. Too invested. She could find out in time whether John was gay or straight or something else. There would be time for tact.

But…she should…she should call John. Or something. That was what people did, wasn’t it? But how did you go about it? What sort of things were you meant to say? She reached for her jacket and pulled out her phone, holding it, staring at it as if it were an alien object. Oh god. She’d better….she’d better do it. But, but what if she was doing it wrong? What if it was too early? What if John hadn’t meant what she’d said? Sherlock put down the phone miserably. She was a failure, she told herself, wanting, suddenly and inexplicably, to cry. She couldn’t even call a girl. A girl she’d seen for what? Ten minutes? Five?

She went to bed that night, still dejected and unhappy. It seemed to take years for sleep to overtake her, lying there with her head buried in her pillow, which as the dark wore on became damp with her tears.

The next morning when her alarm woke her, she discovered she hadn’t quite managed to sleep off the feeling of misery. She had numbed it in sleep, but now she was conscious it enveloped her again, stronger. She hadn’t thought that was possible. She dragged herself up, and forced herself to get dressed. She couldn’t eat, though she tried. She just about managed to drink a cup of tea, and then made herself go out and walk to the shop, open it up, set things out. She wanted to stay at home, sleep and hide the pain and cry and wallow in it. But then, perhaps, she tried telling herself, it would be better to be doing things, distracting herself. Besides, it was ridiculous, said the logical part of her mind, to be sobbing over some girl she hardly knew. She needed to pull herself together. If only that were as easily done as thought.

She had a few customers that morning, and she dealt with them very carefully, a woman treading around broken glass. She bit her tongue and held herself back from screaming at the woman who told her that she just wanted some stuff to make her house look a bit mystical, and that she wasn’t ‘some weirdy witch’ or anything. At about half twelve, Sherlock was sitting with her chin in her hands, diligently not crying, It was painstaking work. If Hamish had had hands, he would have patted her shoulders consolingly, but he didn’t, so he just murmured repeatedly ‘it’s okay, promise, you’ll be alright, don’t be so hard on yourself, lass.” Sherlock said nothing, busy with her efforts.

The door opened, and the little bell above it chimed. Sherlock swallowed. She would have to raise her head. Attend to the customer. It was a thing one did, when one ran a shop. Then the person said, “You look miserable as sin. Penny for your thoughts.”

Sherlock looked up. She was mistaken. She had to be. She was imagining things. Except that she wasn’t. Looking up, her eyes met John’s, soft, grey and kind. She found her tongue stuck to her mouth. She couldn’t speak.

“She’s upset.” Hamish said.

“I can see that.” Said John, a sympathetic smile curving the edges of her peach-glossed lips. “Why?”

“She won’t tell me. Or she doesn’t know.”

“I….can speak for myself.” Sherlock said, schooling her voice to not stumble.

“What’s wrong, then?”

“You don’t want to know.” Sherlock paused, took a heaving breath. “I barely know you. I can’t heap all my baggage on you.”

“Yes you can. Of course you can. Look, want to know why I came?”

Sherlock shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“I came to ask you out to lunch.”

“What?” Sherlock raised her head, surprised.

“I’ve got a long lunch break on Wednesdays. I thought we could get lunch, maybe. I don’t work very far away, and I didn’t fancy spending lunchtime alone. You came to mind. Evidently it was some kind of premonition – you look as if you need it. Come on, get up. It’ll do you good. Where shall we go?”

Rising dazedly, Sherlock gave a blank look. “Wherever you like.”

“All right. You don’t seem up to making decisions. Come on.”

“What, are you just going to leave me here?” asked Hamish indignantly.

“Yes. That’s exactly what we’re going to do.” Said John.

“You have to be firm with him.” Sherlock said approvingly as they left. “He won’t listen to anything else. He’s manipulative.”

John laughed. “I never imagined I’d hear a sentence like that.”

They went out for lunch and talked of this and that. John learned that Sherlock had a brother who didn’t approve of her magic-working, but that her parents didn’t mind. Sherlock learned that John had an older sister, a lesbian. “Her name’s Harriet, but she calls herself Harry.”

“Like you call yourself John.”

“I guess. I don’t want to follow her example, mind you. I make a point of not getting drunk and having my wife leave me. I’m surprised she got anyone to marry her, to be honest. Harry’s a drag. But she loved Clara. She still does. Only girlfriend she ever got to stay.”

“You married, John?” Sherlock asked, masking her nervousness. “Got anyone special?”

John laughed again; laughter came so easily to her. Sherlock envied it. “No. Honestly, I haven’t been out in ages. It seems like a lot of effort. But hey, you’re single too, right?” Sherlock nodded. “We should go out sometime, clubbing or something. Do ourselves an evening of it. Catch you a man – or a woman.”

“Men aren’t really my area.” Sherlock confessed, a blush touching her cheeks with red.

“I can relate to you on that front. I mean, not that I mind them, but six times out of ten they’re bastards. I feel safer with women.” So there, then. John wasn’t straight, at least. That was something.

“Mm, I can imagine that.” Sherlock found the words flowed more easily than they did usually, and her anguish flowed away from her. She could have sung and danced. Coming back to the shop she waved John goodbye, and called to her to ring her. It was much easier, now John could do the calling.

“You’re cheery.” Said Hamish, when she came and sat down behind the counter.

“I am.” She was free with it.

“Some turnaround.”

“No need to be snarky.”

“You like her, don’t you?”

Sherlock flushed, suddenly brought down to earth. “Maybe.” She said. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Then be quiet about it.”

“She likes you too.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Have you seen the way she looks at you? Open your eyes, Sherlock!”

“Be quiet.” Sherlock said, but her voice was softer, and her smile was back, secretively, quietly.


	2. Two: Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They go dancing. A kiss, a kiss, my kingdom for a kiss and a pair of Mrs Hudson's shoes. Also Mrs Hudson is gay with Mrs Turner because reasons.

There was a noticeable change in Sherlock now the prospect of John was on the horizon. She became suddenly cheerier. There was a spring in her step. Hamish made many caustic remarks about it. “If it all goes doon the plughole,” he said one afternoon as Sherlock was fussing about polishing the shelf of crystal balls. “I talked tae Portia about you.”

“Portia?” She didn’t even turn to look at him.

“The vampire lass. Ah told ye about her.”

“Oh, right.”

“Yeah, anyway, I talked tae her, and she says she’d ‘ave ye if this John-lass doesn’t work out. Not that ah’m saying it won’t, mind.”

“Sure, whatever.” Sherlock really wasn’t listening. The last of the balls was clean, and she squinted at her reflection in it, with its thick dark curls, its cheek-bones. She rubbed at her cheeks. Were they too prominent? Probably. Ah well. Couldn’t be helped.

Her phone buzzed on the table, setting Hamish’s teeth nattering. “Can ye stop leavin’ at thar!” he screeched, annoyed.

Sherlock laughed. “Get over it. You whine too much.” She went over and picked it up. There was a text from John. _Are you free tonight?_

Sherlock bit her lip. She should be doing an inventory, but it was a Friday night. She deserved a little fun, didn’t she? _Yes – why?_ She typed, and then put the phone into her pocket and picked up the pricing machine to go round and ticket the new set of DIY witchcraft books she’d bought in. She was rather keen on those. They were slim volumes with bright covers, in a set. There was _DIY Nature Witch, DIY Fortune-Teller, DIY Water Witch, DIY Alchemist_ and so on. They were modern, and they were useful, and cheap, too, because they were paperbacks. She clicked the pricing-gun at them, happily singing a tune from _Wicked_ , which she’d been to see a good while ago with a girl who’d asked her out.

“Ye shouldnae sing that – someone’ll think you mean it.” Hamish said sourly.

“I do.” Sherlock was pert. “I will be loathing you my whole life long.”

“Shut yer mouth.”

“I don’t mean it, Ham. You’re my best friend.”

“Ye ken that paints an awful picture, daen’t ye? When yer best friend is deed.”

“Not dead, Hamish, differently alive. Undead.”

“I’m deed and I’ll thank ye to let me say so.”

“If you like.” Sherlock’s phone buzzed again in her pocket. Another text from John. _Want to go out? You need taking out of your shell. We’ll go clubbing._

Clubbing? What the… what was she thinking? That was the last thing Sherlock wanted to do…but if she said no, she’d miss out on seeing John. And John. The face swam into her mind, soft, the edges blurred. Little details leapt into focus: the crinkles around John’s eyes when she smiled, the grey streaks in the blue of her eyes, the pink blush that spread across her cheeks. Yes, she’d go. For John, she would go anywhere. To hell and back. To heaven. Across oceans and deserts, through forests and over mountains: anywhere, and everywhere. It was love, she thought, apprehension bubbling up in her, fear of being let down again, of pining after someone she couldn’t have. She pushed it to the back of her mind, did her best to repress it, and picked up her phone. _Sure, I’ll come. What time?_

 _Eight_. The reply came almost instantly.

_I’ll be home by then._

_I’ll pick you up from yours then – what’s the address again?_

_221B, Baker Street._ A tiny flat, but she was lucky to have gotten it at all in the centre of town like that. The landlady was a witch who’d found her via the Neighbourhood Witch Project, and was a regular patron of the shop. She was a kind, grandmotherly sort of person, elderly, and all her spells were homely domestic things that called for honey and raisins and domestic blend teabags. She and Sherlock were oddly close, for tenant and landlady. That is, they shared spells and lipstick (both were partial to shades of plum), and occasionally cardigans.

 _I’ll pick you up at eight then – see you there._ Well, that was that. She had a date…more or less. She wasn’t sure if calling it a date made it better because it reassured her that she had a chance with John, or worse because what if…what if she didn’t have a chance, and it was all just friendship. She had a hard time telling the difference, and it was a distasteful subject. Sometimes she wished she could climb into John’s mind and find out, but then again she didn’t, because that would cause all sorts of problems. Still, she thought quite often about how strange it was, that she could think all her own thoughts and she was this little world inside herself, but other people couldn’t see it, and they had their own little them-centric worlds just like hers, with only really their own outlook. It was odd. People lived in their own universes, and collided with other people and forgot too often that those people weren’t just props but the centres of their own universes.

Anyhow, she was thinking too much, and to think too much is the surest way to break your heart and fuck up your life, so she pushed it back, and instead of labelling things set to thinking about all the little things she loved about John again, listing them over and over and smiling to herself.

That evening, after Sherlock got home, the first thing she did was make a cup of coffee. Then she wandered through, holding it like a hand-warmer, to her bedroom, and went through the items in her closet one by one. A dress, it should be a dress, but what kind? Which one? Dark purple, thin and figure hugging, plain cut? No, too severe. The dark blue one with the patterned netting and the flouncy skirt? No… Little and black? Again, not quite right. Damn it. This one! It was a full-skirted Audrey Hepburn style dress Sherlock hadn’t worn in years, a plum colour like an ageing bruise overlaid with old-gold lace patterns. Perfect.

She put it on carefully, and then tights. And then there was the problem of shoes. She had a purple pair she could have worn, and which would have been perfect, only the heel had come off them a few weeks ago. She had nothing else that quite worked, and she wanted to look _perfect_. Then she remembered that she and Mrs Hudson had the same sized feet. Holding her skirt with a handful of lace and silk, she hurried out of her rooms and downstairs to Mrs Hudson’s apartment. Her landlady was in the kitchen, prodding at a mug full of herbs.

“Having fun?” Sherlock asked, tipping her head on one side.

Mrs Hudson looked up and smiled. “I’m just trying out a new charm-thingum Maeve – Mrs Turner, I mean – lent me the recipe for. It doesn’t seem to be going right, though.”

“You’d better ask her about it.” Sherlock said. “How are things going with you two, anyway?”

Mrs Hudson blushed a little, and looked down at the greenish mix. “Well, her divorce is getting properly underway, and when it’s finished…well, we’d want to move in together. There’d be an extra source of income, too, if we can let out one of our little downstairs bits as well. We’re going out to dinner tomorrow, actually.”

“That’ll be fun. Are you two just going to cohabit, or are you thinking of marriage?”

“Well, now that you mention it… We always said one marriage was enough, but actually we were thinking it might be rather nice, I mean, since we liked each other for so long, to maybe do the marriage thing, actually, yes.”

Sherlock grinned. “It’ll be good. But that wasn’t what I came to talk to you about, actually.”

“No? What are you all dressed up for, anyway? Where are you off to, Sherlock.”

“I’m going out with…with a friend.”

Mrs Hudson raised her eyebrows, but tactfully restrained from saying _oh, a date then_ , because she knew how Sherlock was about these things.

“And I have a little problem.”

“Oh?”

“I need a pair of shoes. The heel’s broken off my other ones and I haven’t had time to take them in to the man at Timpson’s to get fixed yet, and I don’t have a pair that are the right colour. And I mean, we’re the same shoe size, so I was wondering if you had anything?”

“Not much that I wear nowadays would go with that – you have to remember I’m just an old woman, Sherlock, but I think I have a pair in the cupboard. Relic of my days as a wild young thing, roundabout the time I met Frank. I should never have married him, really, Sherlock. I didn’t even like him, but he just swept me off my feet, and I thought, he’s very nice to me, it must be love, mustn’t it, because girls can’t fall in love with girls. I was a silly little thing, really. Glad he was gotten rid of, I must say. That hex you worked on him worked like a treat, really, it did, and I mean of course when it turned out he’d been doing all that illegal stuff for years it was perfectly justified.”

“Of course it was.” Said Sherlock, a tad impatient. Mrs Hudson was speaking from the other room now, and after a minute or so she returned to the kitchen with her fingers hooked into a pair of old-gold mary-janes, kitten heeled. She handed them to Sherlock, who perched on a stool at the breakfast bar and slid her feet into them. They fitted perfectly. She kicked her heels like a children’s book heroine.

Mrs Hudson gazed on admiringly. “Well don’t you look just pretty as a peach? And they’re perfect. Who’s the lucky lady you’re all dressed up for, anyway?”

Sherlock flushed, and fixed her gaze on the shoes to avoid meeting her landlady’s eyes. “Just a friend. No-one special.” That was a lie. John was everyone, everything special, the most special person Sherlock thought she’d ever met. She reminded herself that this was stupid. She’d only met John a handful of times, they had exchanged a minimum of words; it was completely unreasonable for it to feel like summer had come early whenever John walked into a room, for her to see John’s face when she shut her eyes every evening, for her to wonder every little intimate detail about John. It was ridiculous, but it was all there seemed to be.

“All right. Nice outfit, anyhow.” Mrs Hudson said, eyebrow raised and her mouth pushed into a disbelieving smirk. She knew Sherlock was lying, but she knew better than to press for information.

“Right.” said Sherlock, tersely, ashamed of herself. “Thanks.” She stood up curtly and went upstairs. Mrs Hudson watched her go, shaking her head. Sherlock was a clever girl, she thought, very much so, but blind to the obvious. She’d have to be careful, or she’d kill herself pining after something she could have, thinking she could never have it.

Upstairs, Sherlock stood in front of the bathroom mirror and surveyed herself with a grimace. She was probably ugly. There was no way John could ever love her, she thought, savagely uncapping a stick of mascara so that it streaked over her fingers. She swore, and scrubbed it viciously off with water that quickly turned scalding. She did her make-up carefully, then, meticulously. She wanted to look perfect. Why, she didn’t know, since even when she was all made up, seeing herself in the mirror, she still thought she looked dreadful. No, she would not be the girl John fell for. Not her. But still, despite that inevitable heartbreak when all vain hope was cut off, she still wanted to be near John? Why? Because she was in love with her, or something like it, and she would cross galaxies just to spend one more moment with John. God, it was sentimental bullshit but it was the only way she could think, now she felt this way.

Downstairs, someone knocked on the door. Sherlock leapt up and ran, tripped on the stairs despite the relative sensibility of her shoes, and tumbled down half the steps. It was a miracle she didn’t rip her dress, she thought, righting herself at the bottom, just as Mrs Hudson bustled to the door to reveal John on the doorstep.

“Is Sherlock there?” John asked. “We’re supposed to be going out.”

“I’m right here!” Sherlock called, hurrying forward past her landlady to the door. _I love you._ The words were on her lips before she knew it. “You look great.” was what she said.

“Thank you.” John said, and smiled that smile that left Sherlock feeling like one does when sudden sunlight breaks through a gap in the clouds after a rainstorm. “You look amazing.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Thank you would have been a better answer, and she knew it in the seconds after she said it but it was too late. Besides, she was dressed quite wrongly for John. John was wearing an outfit that looked for all the world like something out of early 1900s queer subculture, a suit with a modish white scarf set about her neck. It was not what Sherlock had expected her to wear. But then, she suspected John of having wildly varying fashion tastes.

John said nothing, but that smile was all Sherlock saw, was all she ever saw. They set off together, Sherlock pulling on a coat as they left. “Where are we going?” asked Sherlock, as they went down into Baker Street tube station and swiped their oyster cards.

“A club. We’ll shake things up a bit – you need taking away from dusty books, and skulls and all that misery and death. That’s what I think, anyway.”

They got out a few stops later, and John took Sherlock’s hand and led her down a set of steps below street level. Inside, the place was dark, lit in red and purple. Music blared – loud, too loud to Sherlock’s mind – almost deafening. The whole place thrummed and vibrated like an impassioned heartbeat to the thumping bassline. It smelled of alcohol, and sweat, and Sherlock noted, of sex and too many people’s different perfumes all mixed up together. John grinned and tugged her up to the bar, bought her a drink, which she sipped uncomfortably. She loved being with John, would do anything to be with her, but being here, now, felt like as much of an ordeal as those imagined poetic feats.

“Let’s dance!” John yelled above the roar of the music.

“A-alright.” Sherlock said, shouting too quietly, too ineffectually, to be heard. This was what it would always be like, she thought. Trying to get through to an unreachable woman in a voice too thin to carry half a metre across a crowded room.

John laughed, and Sherlock’s heart turned cartwheels, over and over, at the sound. _I love her. I love her. I love her so much. I do. What? I haven’t known her long enough! This is impossible. But it’s happening. Love exists: the impossible occurs._

John pulled her over to the dancefloor, and they joined the throng of bodies grinding and twisting to the music. Sherlock felt incredibly out of place, uncomfortable. But there was John, face to hers, dancing in wild abandon, and Sherlock couldn’t let it go. Sherlock loved to dance – she had since she was a child – but not like this. She was old-fashioned, classical, and here she was out of her depth, an alien in a foreign land. Her foot slipped, and she whirled around, disorientated, and crashed into another person. The person was quite substantial, a six-foot tall gentleman dancing with another young man. Coming up against him, Sherlock was knocked to the floor. John helped her to her feet, but she felt dizzy and nauseous. It was partly the shock of the fall, and partly the oppressive heat and smell and sound of the club. She half-collapsed into John, and mumbled, “We have to leave.” into her ear. John nodded, and led her away, out to a cold corridor where she retrieved their coats, and then into the night.

A few steps away from the club, Sherlock came back to her senses. Oh god. What had she done? She’d ruined the evening. John would hate her forever. She was good for nothing, nothing at all. “I’m – I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to… to ruin everything. You can, I mean, you can go back if you want… I’m sorry. I’m a nightmare. I know.”

“No, you’re not.” John said, quite seriously, stopping dead and putting a hand on Sherlock’s arm. “You’re not a nightmare. You didn’t ruin anything. I should have known that wasn’t your thing. It isn’t really mine, either. I mean, look at us. We’re too old and steady for that shit. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. And I’m not leaving you. We’ll go somewhere else.” She paused for a moment, and looked Sherlock over, squinting her eyes as she thought. “I know just the place. We’ll both fit in better. Come on.” She paused again, and stepped smartly to the roadside, waving her arm in the air. “I think we’ll get a taxi, and screw the fare. You’re too shaken up for the tube.” Sherlock wanted to protest about this needless protection at John’s expense, but she was distracted by what John had said. Was it true? John didn’t mind? No, it couldn’t be. She was just saying that, to make Sherlock feel better. Probably she pitied her.

They got into the cab, and Sherlock was too distracted by the play of light from the cab window on John’s face and neck to notice their destination. Oh god. Involuntary images were being cast up of her lips tracing the patterns the light made on John’s skin, vivid imaginings of what it would feel like to kiss John’s cheeks and neck and jawline. She was blushing as she thought it – she could feel the heat radiating off her cheeks. She hoped John didn’t notice.

The cab pulled up outside a large building, and they got out. “Where are we?” Sherlock asked, gazing around her, bewildered.

“A place I think you’ll like. It’s a dance-hall…or a ballroom. A mix of both. I don’t know what you’d call it. But I think we’re dressed for here.” John said, as they walked to the entrance. She had barely stopped smiling that whole evening. Sherlock felt covered in her brilliance. _This must be what being in space feels like, surrounded by the stars, bathed in their centuries of light._

They went inside, and the music was slower, calmer. Sherlock felt quietened. The music washed over her, and the people in this sparsely populated ballroom, spinning slowly round and round, gave her so much more of a sense of belonging than she had had before. “Can you dance?” John asked her.

She nodded. “Yes. I love it. This kind of dancing. Not the kind with gyrating.”

John laughed, and Sherlock felt the fizz of starlight on her skin. “Only you would use gyrating in actual sentence.”

They moved onto the dancefloor. A waltz began to play, and the pair of them began to dance, Sherlock guiding John, who was by far the lesser dancer of the two. The music lilted and drifted, melting their setting into a place far away from London’s rainwashed streets. In the dream of the dance they were in Strauss’s soft Vienna, dancing with the society girls and beautiful ingénues in an Austrian ballroom in spring. It was a beautiful dream, and in the trancelike state of it Sherlock failed to stop herself from moving in to kiss John’s cheek lightly as the dance neared its end. Just at the moment her lips were about to touch John’s skin, though, John moved, and the kiss landed glancingly on her lips. Sherlock was stunned, and would have fallen if the dance had gone on any longer, but the music finished, then, in a dying swirl. The dream lay in pieces on the floor.

She flushed, and stared, petrified at John. “O-oh my god…” she stammered. “I-I’m so sorry, I don’t – I don’t know what I was – what I was thinking, I didn’t mean…”

“What?” John seemed amused, and perplexed. “What are you apologising for?”

“F-for kissing you like that, I didn’t think, I just-”

“Didn’t you want to kiss me?”

“I-I did.” Sherlock confessed, and immediately wished she hadn’t. “But-”

“Well, I wanted to kiss you, too. I have since I first met you. Why did you think I kept coming back? Why did you think I asked you out tonight?”

Sherlock stared at her. This turned everything upside down. “But that isn’t… You can’t. I’m not pretty enough, or-”

John looked amazed. She brushed a finger down Sherlock’s cheek, effectively silencing her. “What do you mean, you’re not pretty enough? You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. You’re mesmerising. Now, will you kiss me, properly, this time?”

Sherlock smiled in spite of herself, and nodded. “Yes, of course.”

“Come on, then.” John put her hand behind Sherlock’s head, pulling her down, and their lips met. Sherlock was flooded with sensation, just as she had imagined, only more, more and more and more as John deepened the kiss. An eternity passed. Trees were planted, grew up and blossomed. Galaxies were sung into being. A thousand lives wound their way through time. The light of a billion long-dead stars finally reached the earth, and converged on that spot. Then they let each other go.

 _I love you. I love you. I love you._ Sherlock wanted to say. She couldn’t believe this had happened. This much. It was a miracle, an epiphany, a once-in-a-lifetime thing. The words never left her mouth, though. She choked on them and locked them back into her heart. Not yet, she thought, not yet, or she’d scare John off with sudden deep commitment. Better to wait, and hope and pray that it would grow, and she would have the chance to say those words that were always on the tip of her tongue.


	3. 3. tea and spells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock scores a second date, attempts to see the future, and realises quite how deeply smitten she is.

Sherlock was walking on air all evening. The pair of them danced, and she was dancing like a sea-nymph or a fairy, with wild abandon, whirling about like a wave in John’s arms. It was wonderful. She stopped each dance breathless. The strange slow dance of the infinite stars, recreated in an earthbound ballroom, as two girls half in-love whisked each other round in a torrent of euphoria. Sapphoria, is it, this ecstasy of a girl as she comes so close to the woman she loves? Perhaps. Sherlock rolled the word around her tongue. She couldn’t remember where she read it, but it was such a pretty word. It must describe her. She knew where it came from, from Sappho, the poetess, the one who loved her women, and who wrote of it.

She remembered as a teenager, reading books of Sappho’s poems in bed on summer nights when she should have been asleep, and wondering what love might feel like. It must be so beautiful, she had thought, that dizzying thing. _You: an Achilles apple, blushing sweet on a high branch_ … Blushing, truly. Her cheeks were pink with it. And true, it was dizzying and wondrous, but it was terrifying too. It ached so, but she couldn’t tell John the whole of it. No. It would alienate her. It ate away at Sherlock, tearing into her when she thought about it. At once she was beautifully, wonderfully happy, and in deep pain. Her heart seemed rent in two. It was gorgeously agonising. The words of Sappho etched themselves onto her mind again. That fragment. _You burn me._ Truly, that was the essence of love, to be lit up but consumed by it.

The music slowed, and stopped, and the evening was over at last. Slipping her hand into Sherlock’s, John led her out of the room. They walked back together, and after John had gone Sherlock washed, and got into bed still in a strange ecstasy. She could almost still feel the pressure of John’s hand on hers, fingertips digging into her soft palm. She could recreate the brush of John’s lips against hers…oh god, the goodnight kiss on the steps of her house in the orange light from the street-lamp, the smell of John, her soft pink lip-balm… everything, just everything. It was so much. So bountiful. It was as if fortune had skimped for years and had suddenly poured showers of gold into her lap. She felt enveloped in it.

Not since her heady teenage years, the first time she kissed a girl, had she felt like this. Giddy, euphoric, she lay back in bed, felt her hair spread out around her head in a damp halo. John’s face swam in her imagination. Her eyes, crystal pools to drown in. Her lips, soft and light as feathers, tinted with rose. The flush touching her cheeks, her smile that shone like sunshine and made Sherlock feel light-headed. A sudden thought struck her, and she scrambled up out of bed to her bookshelf. Piling books on witchcraft and herb-lore, medieval history and fairytales onto the floor, she hunted, and found what she was looking for. Smiling to herself, she bounded back into bed and pulled the covers over her. Opening the well-worn pages, she read again those half-remembered words and recreated how it had felt to be in love the first time it had struck. Sleepily, she read Sappho and gazed through her window at the stars.

The next day, she went to work still a little dreamy. She was distracted all morning, not concentrating on the customers. More than one of them got quite shirty with her; she kept giving them the wrong things. “What’s up wi’ ye?” asked Hamish chidingly. “Yer not ye’sel this morning.”

Sherlock failed to answer for a few minutes. Then she said, “No, I’m not. Or I am. I haven’t felt like this in forever, Hamish. It’s amazing!”

“Felt like what?”

“This! Have I told you what happened last night? Have I? Have I?”

“Ye ken ye told me about six hundred times, Sherlock. Ye havenae stopped talking about it since ye came in!”

“I can’t stop thinking about her, Hamish. I just can’t. I’ll ruin myself with it.” Sherlock sat down at the counter and began to detangle the amulets as a calming mechanism.

“Yer in love, aren’t ye?”

Sherlock flushed. “Perhaps a little.”

“A little? Lass, yer in deep. Ye ought tae be more careful, ye ken. It’s dangerous, this love is, so I hear.”

“Dangerous, but so lovely, Hamish. You have no idea!”

Hamish, somehow, contrived to look offended. “I’ll thank ye to take that back, madam! Me, I ken all about love. It’s only – what? – a hundred years or so since my last love affair. I remember it like ‘twas yesterday.”

“You still say ‘twas unironically, Hamish. It really must have been a couple of hundred years.” Said Sherlock, smirking.

Had he had eyeballs, Hamish would have glared icily at her. Since he didn’t, he contented himself with hmmphing and refusing to speak. Sherlock rolled her eyes at him (really, there was a time when that skull needed to accept that being dead equalled being out of touch).

The bell over the door chimed, and Sherlock didn’t look up at first. When she did, she saw someone perusing the bookshelves; someone she recognised instantly. A thrill ran across her skin, and she smiled involuntarily. Everything felt like spring. She jumped up and went over to John. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today!”

John turned, smiling, and shrugged. “What can I say? I couldn’t resist.” The words hung in the air, light, but…meaningful. What was this, then? Sherlock wondered. Flirting? Or just a nice thing you said…to a friend…? No. No no. She was definitely being silly now. Perhaps it wouldn’t work out, but she had a good chance now. For fuck’s sake, she’d kissed John twice! Two whole entire times! If that meant nothing, then the world was a stranger place than even she could have imagined it. It meant something, she reassured herself, and the thought made her so happy she could burst. _I wanted to kiss you, too. I have since I first met you._ Had John really said that? It seemed unimaginable, a fantastical thing that could never be replicated in real life. But no, she had not been high, nor in a trance, nor sleeping. It had been real. Her smile grew even wider. She struggled to straighten her face, but to no avail. John saw, and her features softened, her smile creasing the dimples into her face more strongly.

“John, I wanted to say – last night… I hope I didn’t ruin things to badly. I know I’m a liability.”

“You’re not.”

“I am, but anyway, I wanted to say that I really loved it. Loved…being with you, that is. And maybe, I was wondering, I mean if you want to and if you don’t that’s okay it’s totally okay I’d completely understand I’m not very dateable but maybe we could do it again sometime?” she blurted it, not pausing, finishing in one breath.

John smiled, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Careful. You have to remember to breathe in between words sometimes. Believe me, I know. I’m a doctor.” She laughed. “Of course we could. I was about to say the same thing, more or less, with more pauses. You’re great fun to be with, Sherlock, and I’d love to go out on another date with you sometime.” _Another_ date! Then that had been a date – and it had gone well. Sherlock could have jumped for sheer joy. Not that she did, mind. She was far too preoccupied with restricting herself for that.

“Fantastic!” was all she said. “What shall we do?”

“Well, I’d say that’s up to you. We could go picnicking somewhere, maybe? Or to the cinema if we were to be cliché, or have afternoon tea or something. Whatever you want.”

“Oh, please don’t make me make decisions.” Sherlock begged. She had a horror of it – what if she decided on something, and John didn’t like it? Really, that was almost inevitable, and it could ruin everything!

“I’ll pick, then – I think afternoon tea. It fits with last night’s waltzing, doesn’t it? What afternoons are you free?”

“Well, I close the shop on Sundays. So...tomorrow, I suppose. You don’t work Sundays, do you?”

“No, I don’t. Sundays, and Saturday afternoons I have off. That’s why I’ve time to come and frivol with you instead of keeping my nose to the grindstone.”

“It’s very short notice, but might you perhaps…maybe…want to go out on Sunday? This Sunday? Oh no, that’s silly. You don’t want to go out with me twice in one weekend. That’s two much. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking… Next Sunday?”

“This Sunday sounds great, Sherlock.” John said, smiling. “You know you really don’t have to be so nervous all the time. I do want to spend time with you. You’re not some kind of burden.” That was hard to believe, thought Sherlock, but if she pointed that out a fuss would kick up so she prudently bit down on her tongue and kept the words locked inside.

John stayed in the shop all afternoon, amusing herself by organising the bookshelves. There was a quiet spot halfway through the afternoon, when the pair of them sat with cups of tea, John on the edge of a table, engrossed in a book entitled _How To Read The Stars_ , Sherlock at the counter, sorting a tray of gemstones and watching her. The afternoon sunlight transmuted the room to honey, dust-motes dancing in the beams like indoor stars. It was a soft, calm scene. Hamish was relating some story about a girl he’d dated back when he was alive, but no-one was listening to him. John reached up a finger and pushed a strand of hair back from her face absent-mindedly. Even such a little action was, thought Sherlock, so incredibly exquisite, so beautiful, so endearing. She was reminded of a book she had read as a child about three princesses with glass hearts. She felt, she thought, much as the second princess in the book had. This princess had bent down to smell a rose, and its scent was so beautiful her heart had pinged and cracked. John was that sort of beautiful, she thought. So beautiful that had Sherlock’s heart been made of glass it would surely have cracked, at least a little.

Evening came, and Hamish pointed out that Sherlock had to close the shop. Reluctantly, she did so, and she and John parted. Before she left, John squeezed Sherlock tight in a brief hug, and kissed her passingly on the cheek before vanishing out of the door. Sherlock was left standing there, dazed and speechless for a moment. She had gotten so comfortable with John and had thought the awkwardness was gone, but she hadn’t been expecting the press of lips on skin, and it threw her. It felt like her love had been waiting at her shoulder, gently leaning against her, and then suddenly with that small gesture had turned and slammed her into the wall. It was sudden, and harsh, the remembrance of quite how in love she was.

When she got home, Mrs Hudson called to her from the kitchen. “Sherlock, is that you? I’ve just made tea – care to come and have a cup with me?”

Sherlock didn’t answer, but shuffled into the kitchen. It wasn’t as if she could refuse. She perched on a stool and took the tea the landlady proffered to her, holding it rigidly in her hands. Mrs Hudson looked concerned. “Are you all right, Sherlock?”

Sherlock snapped out of it, put the tea on the tabletop. “What? Yes, yeah, I’m fine.”

“How did your date go?” _A date. It had been a date. And what was more, she had a second._

Sherlock flattened her hand and wavered it up and down. “Comme ci comme ca.”

“Tell all.”

“Well, we went to a club…which was _disastrous_. I almost got knocked out – it was horrendous.”

“Oh dear.”

“And I mean I thought I’d ruined everything… But then she took me to this dance hall place…it was lovely. And she – I mean – she kissed me… It was sort of by accident the first time but not the second…”

Mrs Hudson smiled. “Well, aren’t you the lucky lady?”

Sherlock blushed furiously, scowled, crossed her arms, fought for a comeback. “Stop it. It won’t _be_ anything. I mean, it was nothing.”

“Two kisses doesn’t sound like nothing to me.” Mrs Hudson pointed out. “And I have a good deal more experience than you do, dear. At a guess I’d say she probably likes you as much as you like her. You’re too quick to put yourself down. You have emotions, Sherlock, and other people have them too. You’re perfectly loveable.” Sherlock stared at the floor. “Have you seen her since?”

A pause. “She…she came into the shop today. Said…she said…she said she couldn’t resist.”

Mrs Hudson grinned. “There you see, then. That’s definitely something. She wouldn’t say that if she thought you were the disaster you think you are, Sherlock.”

“She did…sort of…I mean I mucked it up but we – I mean – we’re going out again tomorrow.”

Mrs Hudson laughed, shook her head. “You are an idiot, then. That’s a second date, that there. She likes you enough for that, and you’re smitten, clearly, so-”

“What? I’m not smitten – I’m not!”

“Yes, you are. You were practically glowing this morning. Don’t think I didn’t see you, madam. And you wouldn’t be as het up as you evidently are if you weren’t in deep. You care about her. And your blush tells it all.” Sherlock, embarrassed, put her fingertips to her cheeks. True, they were hot. Was she that obvious? As if reading her mind, Mrs Hudson added, “Don’t worry, my love, it isn’t so obvious. I’ve just spent the better part of sixty years people-watching. I’ve learned to recognise the signs. It’ll be all right. You two’ll get along well. You remind me of nothing so much as myself when I first met Maeve.” A dreamy smile crossed the landlady’s face, thinking about her girlfriend. Sherlock couldn’t help but smile herself.

Mrs Hudson and Maeve – Mrs Turner, that was – were a constant hope for Sherlock. Both had been in unhappy marriages. Mrs Hudson’s husband had of course been executed, and when Mrs Turner, landlady of the house next door, had met Mrs Hudson, and had realised she was in love with her, she had filed for divorce. The pair were going to move in together in a few months, perhaps even get married. To Sherlock what it meant was this: that there was always hope. That however old she got, love would wait for her. That someday she’d turn a corner, and come face to face with a girl and her heart would leap, and there would be something, seconded. The trouble was that John felt like that girl. Meeting John had felt like a realisation of that moment she had dreamed of: a sudden momentary breathlessness, the feeling of being starstruck. But she was not at all certain – almost could not dare to think – that John might feel the same way.

On Sunday morning, Sherlock was inspired. From the bottom of her wardrobe, she took out a cardboard box and sat on the floor of her living room, unpacking it. Carefully, she took out a thin round object wrapped up in pink tissue paper. She unwrapped it, and held it out before her. It was an oval mirror, made of black glass in a delicate filigree frame. Sherlock put it on the coffee table, drew the curtains, lit a candle and then turned off the lights. In the darkness, she picked up the candle and went to the top drawer in her kitchen, taking out what appeared to be a battered recipe-book. In fact, it was the book of spells (of her own design, and ones gleaned from books and fellow witches) she had been compiling.

She walked over to the coffee table, put the candle down beside the mirror and opened the spell-book to the index in the back. _Scrying spells: page 23_. She turned to the page, and scanned it, finding the spell for this sort of thing, mouthing the words silently, memorising them. Then she shut the book and put it on the floor, and knelt in front of the coffee table, taking up the candle in her hand. She positioned herself to gaze into the mirror. She saw her face in the darkness, and the candle, clear as day. Nothing else could be seen. She shut her eyes a moment, and then opened them again. Her face was still seen in the mirror.

“ _Mother moon, if thou be’est hearing,_  
_Sister stars, if thou be’est listening,_  
_Lend me now thy powers of clearing,_  
_Show my future: brightly glistening._

_Know thou the deepest secrets of my heart,_  
_Know thou the love I harbour for this girl,_  
_Unknowing seems to tear my soul apart_  
_And you, I knowest, watch o’er all the world._

_Thus, thou celestial beings, might you tell_  
_As I entreat you, with my earnest wish,_  
_What is’t the future seeth hath befell,_  
_Whether is’t our love shall blossom or perish?_ ”

She recited the words, and gazed into the mirror. A moment passed, and nothing. Then John’s face materialised in the black space in the mirror behind her shoulder, and the candle flame seemed to grow brighter. The ghostly figure of John in the mirror ran a hand through the image of Sherlock in the glass, and pressed its lips into her hair. Sherlock thought she could hear the image whisper words, but she could not make out what they were. Then the candle blew out suddenly, and the images vanished from the mirror’s surface. Sherlock waited a moment, then got up and turned the lights back on. Well, that had seemed positive, she thought. It was hardly definitive, though. It didn’t offer answers, only tentative suggestions. A shame, but it couldn’t be helped. Magic was an imprecise art.

Afternoon came, and Sherlock dressed herself up and went out to the little hotel where she and John had arranged to meet. John was waiting for her, and smiled as she approached, stretching out an arm and taking Sherlock’s hand in hers. The pair of them walked into the hotel, and sat down to tea by the open French doors, which let in breezes scented with honeysuckle and lilac. They had little cakes, sandwiches with the crusts cut off and outrageous numbers of cups of tea, and talked about all sorts of things.

“You know,” said John at one point. “You really are unbelievably pretty.” Sherlock chocked on a miniature éclair. _What?_ “I’d kill for cheek-bones like yours.” John brushed Sherlock’s cheek with her fingertip. Sherlock thought she might collapse.

“I don’t – I didn’t… You’re beautiful too, John.” Sherlock flushed, and wanted to vanish into the floor, except that that would mean leaving John, and she didn’t want that.

John smiled. “I’m glad you think so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! I stole Sapphoria from a tumblr post, and the glass hearts thing is from a book I had as a kid called (you guessed it) The Glass Heart by Sally Gardner which was a very lovely book.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly soft lesbian Johnlock witches is the thing for me. Also I love Hamish a lot. The AU I got from Fae faetalities on tumblr. I haven't proofread. Please tell me my mistakes. Hamish's speech is my attempt at writing Glaswegian. I'm sorry. Glasgow is in Scotland. He's very Scottish.


End file.
